“I know the look well—­one of wistful, unsatisfied longing.  It goes to my heart to see it there.  And hast thou noted that the bloom is paling in her cheeks, and that she will sit at home long hours, dreaming in the window seat or beside the hearth, when of old she was for ever scouring the woods, and coming home laden with flowers or ferns or berries?  I like it not, nor do I understand it.  And thou sayest her sisters know not the cause?  I thought that young maidens always talked together of their secrets.”

“Kate doth not.  I have talked with Cecilia anent the matter, and she knows not the cause.  Bess has opined that this change first appeared when it was decided that we went not to London this year, as we had talked of doing earlier in the summer.  Bess says she noted then how disappointed Kate appeared; and she is of opinion that she has never been the same since.”

Sir Richard stroked his beard with meditative gravity, and looked into the fire.

“It is true that the change has come upon her since that decision was made; and yet I find it something difficult to think that such was the cause.  Kate never loved the life of the city, and was wild with delight when she first tasted the sweets of freedom in these woods and gardens.  She loves her liberty right well, and has said a thousand times how glorious a thing it is to range at will as she does here.  Capricious as the child has often shown herself, it is hard to believe that she is pining already for what she left with so glad a heart.  It passes my understanding; I know not what to think.”

Lady Frances raised her eyes for a moment to her husband’s face, and then asked quietly: 

“Hast thou ever thought whether some secret love may be the cause of all?”

The knight started and looked full at his wife.

“I have indeed thought some such thing, but I can scarce believe that such is the case with our Kate.”

“Yet it is often so when maidens change and grow pale and dreamy, and sit brooding and thinking when erst they laughed and played.  Kate is double the woman she was six months gone by.  She will sit patiently at her needle now, when once she would throw it aside after one short hour; and she will seek to learn all manner of things in the still room and pantry that she made light of a short while back, as matters of no interest or concern to her.  She would make an excellent housewife if she had the mind, as I have always seen; and now she does appear to have the mind, save when her fits of gloom and sadness be upon her, and everything becomes a burden.”

Sir Richard looked aroused and interested.  A smile stole over his face.

“Our saucy Kate in love, and that secretly!  Marry, that is something strange; and yet I am not sorry at the thought, for I feared her fancy was something too much taken by her cousin Culverhouse; and since his father must look for a large dower for his son’s bride, our Kate could never have been acceptable to him.  Nor do I like the marriage of cousins so close akin, albeit in these times men are saying that there be no ill in such unions.”